Josephine Victor (born Josephine Gunczler; June 28, 1885 – 1963) was a Hungarian-born American stage actress, director, and playwright.
Early life Victor was born in the Tokay Hills in Hungary in 1885,"Miss Josephine Victor" Washington Herald (November 18, 1907): 9. via Newspapers.com and moved to New York City as a child. She may have attended the Wheatcroft School of Acting on a scholarship."Josephine Victor in Joan of Arc Play" Evening Public Ledger (June 15, 1918): 11. via Newspapers.com She used her brother Victor's first name for a surname when she began acting."News and Gossip of Stageland" The Gazette Times (September 14, 1913): 34. She began performing with the Howard Kyle Company,Alan Kreizenbeck, Zoe Akins: Broadway Playwright (Greenwood Publishin 2004): 171-172. and made headlines as early as 1906, when her costume caught fire on stage, and she doused the flames without breaking character."Girl in Flames Says Her Line without Break" Atlanta Constitution (January 17, 1906): 1. via Newspapers.com
Career On Broadway she debuted in The Secret Orchard by Channing Pollock (1908), and appeared in The Temperamental Journey (1913),"Beauty" Omaha Daily Bee (October 27, 1913): 9. via Newspapers.com The Yellow Ticket (1914),"Shift in 'The Yellow Ticket'" The Sun (June 9, 1914): 9. via Newspapers.com The Bargain by Hermann Georg Scheffauer (1915),Louis V. De Foe, "Personal Triumphs of the Season" Green Book Magazine (April 1916): 690-691. Just a Woman by Eugene Walter (1916),Gerald Bordman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1914-1930 (OUP USA 1995): 41. Martinique by Laurence Eyre (1920),Theatre Magazine (June 1920): 509, 526-527. Dolly Jordan by Ben Iden Payne (1922),Gerald Bordman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1914-1930 (OUP USA 1995): 188. The Cup (1923),Thomas S. Hischak, Broadway Plays and Musicals: Descriptions and Essential Facts of More Than 14,000 Shows Through 2007 (McFarland 2007): 99-100. Judgment Day by Elmer Rice (1934), Wise Tomorrow (1937),Gerald Bordman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1930-1969 (): 156-157. ISBN and finally Summer Night (1939).Arthur Pollock, "Summer Night at the St. James" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (November 30, 1939): 11. via Newspapers.com She is credited as director of one play, Doctor X (1931), a "mystery thriller"."And the Joke was on the Manager" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (January 11, 1931): 28. via Newspapers.com She toured the United States with a vaudeville show in 1921."Heard on Broadway" Theatre Magazine (October 1922): 242. She also appeared on the London stage, in Pelican by F. Tennyson Jesse (1924), and in a few films.
Victor was also a playwright.Brenner, "Memory Lane" Amarillo Globe (June 25, 1936): 7. via Newspapers.com In 1910 she co-wrote a play, Ashes, with Eleanor Maud Crane. Later, as Josephine Victor Reid, she wrote The Prize Pig's Tea-party (1934), a play, How to Get Rich (1930). She also co-wrote two plays, Clay Pigeon (1936, with Marjorie Paradis) and Read about Laura Keene (1937, with I. S. Strouse). She collaborated with Laurence Eyre on creating the 1920 play Martinique, but was not credited as its co-author."Teary Plaudits Disturb Miss Josephine Victor" New York Herald (May 9, 1920): 47. via Newspapers.com
Personal life Josephine Victor married Francis E. Reid, a publicist and drama critic.Helen Ten Broek, "Is Stage Matrimony a Failure?" Theatre Magazine (Midsummer 1920): 24. She was widowed in 1933.A. H. Phillips, "Obituary: Francis E. Reid '87" Princeton Alumni Weekly 34(November 3, 1933): 157. She died in 1963, aged 78 years.
Filmography Year Title Role Notes1946 The Stranger Minor Role Uncredited1947 Desire Me Woman Uncredited, (final film role)
References
External links
The National Portrait Gallery (London) has four photographs of Josephine Victor, all portraits from 1924 by Bassano Ltd
Josephine Victor at IBDb portrait with Helen Ware and Henrietta Metcalf 1923